How Does Noise Affect Coordination?

Research Question:

• Does noise affect coordination?

A noisy environment may make it harder for people to concentrate on tasks that require hand-eye coordination. This experiment will evaluate this premise by investigating whether test subjects’ coordination is disrupted in a loud environment.

Materials:

• Approximately 30 test subjects
• 1 small room
• Stereo or speaker to play music
• Needle
• Thread
• Cup
• Golf ball
• Putter
• Materials for any other hand-eye coordination tests you can think of
• Notebook for analyzing results

Experimental Procedure:

1. Put together several hand-eye coordination tests to give to your test subjects in each environment.
2. Recruit approximately 30 test subjects. Test half of the test subjects in the quiet room first and half of the test subjects in the loud room first.
3. In the quiet environment, ask 15 test subjects to thread a needle 10 times.
4. Record the average time it takes for each test subject to thread the needle.
5. In the quiet environment, ask the same 15 test subjects to putt a golf ball into a cup. Have the participant start at 3 feet away and try putting the golf ball into the cup. If they make the first putt, have them move back in increments of 1 foot at a time and continue this task until they miss the putt.
6. Record the distance at which each participant misses the putt.
7. Repeat steps 3-6 with the other 15 test subjects. This time, play loud music in the room while the participants perform the tests.
8. Repeat steps 3-7. The test subjects that were tested in the quiet room first should now be tested in the loud room and vice versa.
9. Analyze your results. Compare test subjects’ performances in the quiet and loud environments. In which environment did your test subjects perform each hand-eye coordination test best? What percentage of test subjects threaded the needle fastest in the quiet room? What percentage of test subjects achieved their farthest putt in the quiet room? Does a quiet environment seem to impact test subjects’ performance on hand-eye coordination tests?

Terms/Concepts: noise and coordination, hand-eye coordination